Tag: Antique Garde

When they talked about making a transformation, they were talking about an ALL CAPS TRANSFORMATION. On last year’s Revel In The Rubble, the final installment in a “garbage parties” trilogy, Pittsburgh’s Cousin Boneless plied its bizarre and infinitely unique form of freak folk – think a mélange of antique-garde musings, Andrew Bird ambition, and the theatricality…

Antique-garde aficionados, take note: The Bipeds has arrived. The Bipeds is a dance-theater company/rock and roll band under the artistic direction of choreographer/dancer Stacy Wolfson and Curtis Eller, the banjo-playing madman at the head of the American Circus. Wolfson and Eller combine the best of both disciplines, blending movement and song in an intoxicating hybrid for the senses. The…

I’ve always considered Curtis Eller to be the prototypical underground banjo player. He crafts song-stories about history (or more appropriately, history through a warped contemporary lens) with an Americana flare and P.J. Barnum hucksterism; his banjo, as vibrant as a ringing electric guitar, drives the compositions front and center. Little Mazarn, whose self-titled outing will…

The antique-garde is rearing its head again. After seven years of silence, Pinataland founder David Wechsler – whose bizarre orchestrette once emanated from near the epicenter of a NYC micro-scene fascinated with Old World themes, history, and oddball strains of Americana – returns with a self-released 7-inch single. And, man, is it worth tracking down…

Durham, N.C. has been good to Curtis Eller. Ever since the reigning banjo king of the East Coast’s “Antique-Garde” relocated to North Carolina from New York City a few years ago, his fan base has grown more fanatical at shows and on Facebook, and his sound has ripened like delicious fruit or aged like sweet…